moonshaddow garden update

In March I stared working with Randall on the gardens for SVI. And its been busy, but I want to take a moment at the end of a long gardening day to talk about the garden with everyone. Randall may have more to add or some editing here if he feels it- he does a TON of work in these gardens and I am always thankful for his friendship and knowledge in and out of the garden. (pictures will be on soon... paitence)

At SVI we utilize these gardens for food (firstly and most importantly in my opinion- because we like to eat good food), for education- for ourselves (i'm learning a LOT about how to grow food, preserve it, and harvest seeds for the next year.) and to teach others about permaculture, young and old and from every kind of background. It also gives us a great opportunity to work with lots of interesting people who have years of experience growing plants and food, and some who have never picked up a shovel. We also create habitat and biodiversity with our landscaping and permaculture techniques. And its all non profit. We sweat, and check seedlings, haul mulch, turn compost, fix fences, prune vines, and more, all for free, and for the love of seeing happy plants, insects, birds, and people.

So here's what we have been up to since March - in short. (I wanted to put up blog info on all the notes i've taken, pictures i've taken etc... all perfect and in such detail... but with that kindof goal, nothing will ever get done, so I'm doing a little now, and hopefully a little more in the future... like a seedling, this garden blog is coming slowly and not real showy for a bit.)

We stared in March /April with:
flats of:
leeks, kale, kholrabi, lettuce, Brussels sprouts, Broccoli (old seed- don't use old seed... none made it.)
Tomatos- several varieties, Peppers- hot and sweet, Basil,

Direct seed/sets:
onions, potatoes, beans (pole beans, bush beans etc.), snap peas, Zinnas and several flower varieties- (i should have done flats- i had to buy seedlings later since i lost the baby plants in the faster weeds. But the seedlings are doing great.)

May: Food for life and a couple of other trips happened at the begining and end- so thats when I lost the Okra to neglect. (bummer- thank goodness for Sequatchie Cove !)
We also did lots of weeding and I worked on some of the herbal spirals.

Between March and May we had SO many wonderful hardworking people come and work in the garden! There was Mountain Justice Spring Break folks, who built rock walls, did mulching and composting and built pathways for us. There was Stephanie and Patrick who worked SO hard on double digging a LOVE garden among other amazing work like fixing the road from the rain, pruning Kiwi, hauling shiitakii logs out of the woods, etc... And Kai who well... does a LOT and we arn't going to let him leave now.(mwahahaha.) (thanks for mulching today Kai!) And there have been some cross country bike riders, food for life presenters and attendees, friends and family of folks at moonshaddow, folks like Bo who have lived there before and had SO many things to teach me, and of course Chris with his chainsaw, knowledge of where the tools are and what will get the job done, and what goes great in tea etc... and Asha with all her advice and wisdom of whats been done before, and Sage for finding the best berries, bugs, hide outs. Anakesta, for all her awesome help planting herbs, veggies, and teaching us to make smells ... the list goes on and on...

SO ... THANKS TO ALL THESE awesome people and the millions of Lady bugs, wasps, humming birds, bees, and WORMS!-

We have harvested:

(~amounts arn't exact!)
~2 lbs Radishes
~5 lbs Beets
~9 lbs Kholrabi
lots of onions... i can't even imagine the lb's...
LOTS of Lettuce
LOTS of parsley (we have LOTS AND LOTS MORE! anyone want to trade for some parsley?)
Leeks- with more to come
basil- lots of it and more coming
15 lbs of beans!
Potato's! lots more to come.
Chard
MUSTARDS (anyone want some?)
Spinach
fava beans
snap peas
thyme
sage
oregano
rosemarry
pineapple sage, chocolate mint, lots of other mints, catnip, yarrow, rose hips, poppy seed, purple sage, lemon thyme, lemon balm, chick weed,


lbs and lbs of Wine Berries
Blueberries
mulberries
gummie berries
currents
(one lowly strawberry - too much rain/bad location... but again- THANK YOU Seq. Cove Farm!- Padgett's did great- so we had all we could eat!)
Shiitake mushrooms
golden oyster mushrooms
Cherries

And I've harvested an ungodly amount of worm dirt, worm tea, and compost from our little dirt production centers - that i feel i have to mention it.

I'm going to harvest more beets and more potato's this week- golden, red, and white, and more leeks and a spaghetti squash and a watermelon.

I planted in the last two days: some heirloom corn from DiDi, and some sweet corn. Pumpkins- a few different varieties- and i think too close together so we shall see what happens there... Cantaloupe, Loufa, gourds, pimento peppers, MORE BASIL (cuz you can never have too much basil and parsley).

All the tomato plants have tomato's on them- i made a few fried green ones for me and Chris because i just couldn't wait anymore for a red one. One red one that was coming on today- had a little bug in it... boo!- but i ate a cherry tomato today!

We have Cucumbers in the ground now too, and some pepper plants with small peppers on them.

Anyone want Comfrey for anything- i have to cut some out of some beds its trying to take over? Anyone want to trade some stuff for veggies- let us know!

Anyone with cheese, milk, eggs, or meat that they would want to swap for herbs and veggies- that would be a great trade for us. OR be creative- if you would like some dried herbs or fresh, or frozen beans or whatever for something you make or some work, or even a box of screws for my fence project... whatever... we are really into bartering! We have some small plants also to trade for.

I'm also interested in farm work trade - I would love to come see other people's gardens and farms and work there for the day. I understand if other farmers are really too busy to come to SVI to work- but if you or someone you know would like a day in the sunshine pulling weeds - or picking berries- we would love to do that as well with you. (tomorrow - Pears!)

We are also very interested in information exchange and I'm working on the farmer activist group we started at food for life. If you would like to be on that mailing list, let me know, i'm putting those things together this week as well.

I'm looking for Eggplant seedlings if anyone knows of a source right now.

So that's all for now folks!
Happy gardening!